The same day that almost two dozen companies owned by Mr. Freidman filed for bankruptcy protection, the state's Department of Taxation and Finance published its list of the top 250 delinquent taxpayers. Among the leading tax scofflaws are four companies owned by Mr. Freidman: Woodside Management Inc. (No. 24), Downtown Taxi Management LLC (No. 27), 28th Street Management Inc. (No. 41) and Tunnel Taxi Management Inc. (No. 63).

All together, Mr. Freidman's companies owe $8,387,454.22 in unpaid taxes stretching back two years, according to the agency. That's substantially more than the $6 million he was said to owe in a report by WABC early last month. The No. 1 tax delinquent is Salah Morshed, a convicted cigarette smuggler who owes $11.7 million.

The four companies are among hundreds owned by Mr. Freidman, with names like Marshmallow Taxi LLC, Bimbo Taxi LLC and Wolf Pack Taxi LLC. He is also president of Taxi Club Management Inc., which claims to represent the owners of more than 1,000 yellow cabs.

But that isn't the end of Mr. Freidman's financial woes. On July 5, a state Supreme Court justice ordered the taxi fleet owner, who is said to own 200 medallions but controls many more, to pay a lending bank $8,484,949.30 in delinquent payments. The bank, Capital One Taxi Medallion Finance, accused Mr. Freidman and his business partners of defaulting on more than $28 million in loans.

Taxi insiders predicted that Mr. Freidman could still bounce back from these setbacks.

"He still has a lot of friends in the financial world," said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. "I have no idea why."

A spokesman for the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission suggested Mr. Freidman's delinquent tax bill stemmed from his non-payment of the state's $0.50-per-fare fee for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. In a lengthy statement, the spokesman said the TLC was preparing to take action against those medallion owners who fail to pay the MTA surcharge.

"As our rules provide, the TLC recently acted to ensure the payment of the state’s required MTA tax, and address those instances where licensees appear to have been delinquent," the spokesman said. "After having taken appropriate action for one particular operator’s 2013-specific violations through an agreement involving a steep fine and the demonstration of satisfying the obligation, the agency is now processing summonses based on the following year’s state tax delinquency records."

He continued, "Once these summonses are processed and ready, we will take the necessary steps with those individual owners who had direct responsibility to remit the tax, but more importantly, thanks to a recently-passed TLC rule, we can now, going forward, take action against those agents who failed to remit payment to the Dept. of Finance even after having collected the funds from drivers."

Previously, Citibank sought to take possession of 87 of Mr. Freidman's medallions to help cover a $31.5 million debt to the bank. Mr. Freidman claimed he couldn't pay the debt because the bank tightened its lending practice at a time when his business was being squeezed by the rise in e-hail apps like Uber.

Thanks to Uber, the yellow taxi industry is in the midst of an existential crisis. The value of individual medallions has dropped to around $700,000 from its peak of $1.3 million in 2013. The city has declined to auction off a new batch of medallions this year, as industry insiders watch to see if the market stabilizes.

A spokesman for Mr. Freidman declined to comment on both his delinquent taxes and the loan default. New Jersey-based Capital One Taxi Medallion did not return a phone call seeking comment.

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Richard Born may be the inventor of the myriad boutique hotels that have sprung up around town in recent years, but in court, where he's being sued for $50 million, his behavior is "inexcusable" and "unacceptable," according to the judge overseeing the case in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich scolded the Bowery Hotel co-owner and celebrity hotelier for intentionally stalling the case for almost nine months, and then inundating the court with over a half a million pages of documents, some of it junk mail with no connection to the lawsuit.

Mr. Born is a defendant in a $50 million suit brought by his partner, Gerald Rosengarten, who is alleging a scheme by Mr. Born to cut him out of a deal to sell the penthouse suite and several other apartments atop the Bowery Hotel on the Lower East Side. Mr. Rosengarten also claims that immediately after he filed the lawsuit in April 2014, Mr. Born stopped revenue payments to Mr. Rosengarten from his 12% equity stake in the hotel.

Mr. Born, who claims to be the inventor of the boutique hotel, is the force behind such trendy New York City properties as the Bowery, the Maritime, the Mercer, the Greenwich and the Pod. Mr. Rosengarten, meanwhile, is often cited as the original designer of the leisure suit, that blend of polyester and kitsch that found popularity (and ridicule) in the 1970s.

So far, the case is leaning in Mr. Rosengarten's favor. In May, a state judge dismissed Mr. Born's attempt to avoid compensating Mr. Rosengarten for his stake in the hotel, which Mr. Rosengarten says amounts to $1.5 million. Now, the court has again ruled against Mr. Born, this time for deliberately disobeying a court order to provide information related the case, such as email addresses and electronic communication.

"Suffice it to say that the problems are material, pervasive and inexcusable," Justice Kornreich writes. "Such behavior is unacceptable in the Commercial Division" of the state's supreme court, she added.

Mr. Born's team did eventually respond to the court order for digital communications, producing over 500,000 pages of documents in what the judge called a "document dump" and "inexcusable." Some of the documents were "junk emails" with zero value to the case, Justice Kornreich fumed.

In an interview, Mr. Rosengarten said he was pleased that the court has been ruling in his favor, but that he still hopes to reach a settlement before the case goes to trial.

"Richard is taking the position, because of his money, that he can squeeze me to the point of submission," he said. "I will not let that happen."

Through his lawyer, Mr. Born declined comment. With regard to the recent ruling, his attorney Edward Rudofsky said, "We respectfully disagree with the judge's findings and conclusions ... believe we have conducted discovery in a professionally proper manner, and will be seeking appropriate relief with respect to this order."

Federal regulators are giving banks the green light to accept the city's new municipal ID as sufficient verification of identity when opening an account, while noting that the ID card may be insufficient for some financial institutions.

The warning came in an April 30 letter from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors to the city agencies in charge of administering the municipal ID program, also known as IDNYC.

"Because the rule is risk-based, the bank must assess the risk presented by the customer," reads the letter, which was also sent to the New York Bankers Association. "In some cases, the bank may determine that more information than the ID card is necessary to verify the customer's identity."

Banks are also advised to assess each municipal ID holder for risks associated with money laundering, the regulators say, "and conduct appropriate due diligence to manage those risks."

To be sure, it is standard practice for banks to ask for secondary ID when opening an account. The National Credit Union Association issued similar guidance to its members regarding the city's ID card.

For months, the city, along with the New York Bankers Association, had sought advice from the federal and state governments with regard to using the ID to open a bank account. According to the mayor, one aim of the program is to reduce the number of New York's unbanked residents, a goal that the bankers association calls "laudable." The banks believed it was important for state and federal regulators to "weigh in" on whether the city's security protocols and verification of card applicants identities and residency satisfy federal laws, notably those implemented in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We are very glad that all of the federal banking regulators—the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., in conjunction with the Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network—issued strong guidance confirming that financial institutions may accept IDNYC as a valid form of identification to open bank accounts," a spokeswoman for the mayor said.

As to whether the state's Department of Financial Services, which is run by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has responded to the city's request for guidance, the city's spokeswoman did not reply.

The municipal ID program is one of Mayor Bill de Blasio's most successful initiatives to date. Since its launch in January, more than 400,000 New Yorkers have signed up for and received IDs, a fact the mayor trumpeted at a press conference at the Natural History Museum Monday. The card allows many city residents, especially undocumented immigrants, the chance to acquire government-issued identification. At the museum, Mr. de Blasio highlighted three such individuals: a transgendered woman, a World War II-veteran and a 20-year-old Jamaican woman who used her ID to open an account at Amalgamated Bank.

The ID is now being accepted at "dozens" of other financial institutions, the mayor said. The city is in talks with other banks to bring them into the program, a spokeswoman added.

"This is a pocket-sized expression of a big and powerful message," Mr. de Blasio said. "This is a city for everyone."

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LaGuardia Airport's four terminals will be consolidated into one hub and the entire facility will be moved south almost the length of two football fields, under a $4 billion plan proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo Monday.

In addition, the airport will be connected to public transit via an AirTrain link and 24-hour ferry service. Delta Air Lines, which owns Terminals C and D, will be a "full partner" in the project, the governor said. (The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns Terminals A and B, but leases B to Delta.)

The project, which will need to be approved by the Port Authority, will break ground in 2016, is expected to open to passengers in 2019 and will be fully completed 18 months after, Mr. Cuomo said at a luncheon hosted by the Association for a Better New York.

"New York will have the newest major airport in the United States," Mr. Cuomo said, alongside Vice President Joe Biden, who famously said that LaGuardia Airport was akin to a "Third World country" in describing the facility's many shortcomings.

Amid his rambling, folksy comments, Mr. Biden had high praise for Mr. Cuomo: "You've got a governor who thinks big," the vice president said.

The governor also announced a seven-member advisory panel composed of business, real estate and planning experts to help choose the final designs. Daniel Tishman, vice chairman of Tishman Realty Corp. and Tishman Hotel Corp., will chair the panel, which will include former Bloomberg administration planning czar Amanda Burden, real estate developer John Zuccotti and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.

Experts praised Mr. Cuomo's new proposal, while urging the state to safeguard against recurring infrastructure woes like cost overruns and seemingly never-ending construction.

"In order to transform these visions into reality, we must stick to clear budgets and timelines for completing the projects," said Joseph Sitt, a real estate developer and chairman of the Global Gateway Alliance, an advocacy group. "For too long, our airports have been caught in big modernization plans and small actions. Today's announcement should signal the beginning of a new era of fast and efficient overhauls to the region's vital gateways."

]]>The Citizens Budget Commission did not mention Andrew Cuomo by name in a lengthy statement it released Friday about funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's capital plan. But the group was clearly perturbed at the way the governor had compared New York City's contribution to the transit agency with the state's.

On Thursday afternoon, the governor had said that in his proposal, "the city ends up paying a fraction of what the state would be spending" even though "the lion's share" of the transit system is in the city.

But the watchdog and advocacy group noted that much of the state's MTA funding comes from New York City residents and businesses.

"Debating how to apportion funding for the remaining $9.8 billion gap between 'the city' and 'the state' is counterproductive," the Manhattan-based group wrote. "The two entities are alternatives for levying taxes on the regional economy, but the fundamental source of revenue is the same. New York City taxpayers fund $580 million annually in operating and capital support to the MTA, as well as an estimated $4.2 billion of the nearly $6 billion allocated to the MTA from state-authorized regional and statewide taxes. For example, New York City firms pay 73% of the MTA's $1.3 billion regional payroll tax."

According to a transcript released by the MTA of Mr. Cuomo's interview Thursday with NY1, the governor had said:

"Historically, the city didn’t fund the MTA proportionately. That’s because historically, the city was broke. So many of these programs go back to a time when the city was literally under water and the state had to bail out the city. It’s amazing when you go through the budget, how many agencies are still funded like from the 1970s, when the city went through a fiscal crisis.

"Secondly, something like 90% of the MTA ridership is in the city and of the $26 billion in work, $22 billion of the $26 billion is in New York City. So New York City is a lion's share of the riders. They’re a lion's share of the assets and I understand they haven’t paid much historically, but the city’s financial condition is much different than it was and I think the MTA is asking for $200 million per year for five years. The city ends up paying a fraction of what the state would be spending, so I think it is fair and it allows us to resolve the matter and move forward. It’s a much larger number for the state, the state ends up paying $8 billion and the city would be a total of about $3 billion at the end of the day so it is, I think, more than fair to the city."

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Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo endorsed a less "bloated" version of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's five-year capital plan by pledging an additional $8.3 billion in state money if the city increases its total contribution to $3.2 billion.

But many transit advocates did not cheer because Mr. Cuomo did not say where he would find the money, except that he did not expect it to come from congestion pricing, which experts see as necessary for an efficient regional transportation network.

A Cuomo spokeswoman said funding sources need to be negotiated with the legislature, which is not expected to convene until January.

Advocates and experts say the most logical revenue source is congestion pricing, best embodied by a proposal called the Move NY Fair Plan that has gained steam over the last year and is now being considered by the de Blasio administration. Mr. Cuomo responded to City Hall's interest last week by repeating his previously stated opinion that the plan lacks sufficient political support.

"If the governor is saying, 'Sure, we'll find funding, but no, we won't do the most logical solution,' then I don't know what he's thinking," said Nick Sifuentes, deputy director of the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance. "I don't know where this money will come from or what magical thinking is at work."

Move NY, largely developed by "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, the former city traffic commissioner, would toll the East River bridges and 60th Street in Manhattan while reducing tolls on bridges beyond Manhattan. Modeling shows it would reduce congestion, create jobs and raise more than $1 billion annually to maintain mass transit, roads and bridges.

For months, the funding gap in the MTA's $32 billion, five-year capital plan, which pays for general upkeep of the transit system as well as expansions like East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway, hovered around $14 billion. In a letter Thursday to the state budget director and the city's First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris, MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast said the authority was able to shrink the deficit to $9.8 billion, thanks to "unanticipated revenues, aggressive cost-cutting and more efficient operations."

The letter was intended to pressure the de Blasio administration to increase its contribution to the MTA capital plan. For years, the city had chipped in around $100 million annually. But this May, the mayor agreed to the MTA's request for $125 million, only to see the MTA—which is controlled by Mr. Cuomo—immediately demand more.

Mr. Prendergast said then that $300 million was a more appropriate figure for the city to pay. Now he wants $350 million, including $1.5 billion toward the second phase of the Second Avenue subway project. According to Mr. Cuomo, the state would cover the remaining deficit.

That will involve negotiations between Mr. Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan. Until recently, state officials had shown little interest in the plight of the MTA, which services 8.7 million riders a day, an all-time high.

It is conceivable that the state, with an annual budget in the neighborhood of $140 billion, could find the $8.3 billion pledged by Mr. Cuomo over five years. But the Citizens Budget Commission on Friday reiterated its long-held position that "more immediate funding should come from East River bridge tolls and other congestion pricing mechanisms or higher vehicle-registration fees."

Nicole Gelinas, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute, predicted that the full picture of Mr. Cuomo's plans will not come into focus for at least a year. "There's no emergency right now," she said. "They will take their time with this."

She was referring to the MTA's ability to start its capital plan with the money already set aside for it, then find the rest later.

For months, Mr. de Blasio insisted he had not read the Move NY plan, though he had said that it merited consideration and that all options to fund the MTA should be "on the table." But last week, his first deputy, Mr. Shorris, sent a letter to the state and the MTA that said revenue sources should include "raising money through the Move NY plan."

Mr. Cuomo's response on NY1 was succinct: "Been there, done that." He was referring to a different congestion pricing plan, advanced by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, failing to reach a vote in the Assembly or Senate in 2008 after passing the City Council.

"It was defeated soundly in the state Legislature," he said. "So I don't think anything has changed the fundamental politics on Bloomberg's idea, which on the merits you can argue it. But I don't see how it would ever pass."

The governor's comments might have been disingenuous. Not only has the plan changed to include outer-borough toll reduction, but the dynamic in the legislature has changed as well since 2008, when then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declined to bring the Bloomberg plan up for a vote. For one, Mr. Heastie, the new speaker, was named as a supporter of the 2008 pricing plan in a lobbying memo, according to Capital New York.

Alex Matthiessen, lead coordinator for Move NY, said support for the plan is growing and now includes "three dozen elected officials," including an unnamed number of legislators who have yet to make their endorsements public.

"Our hope is the governor will give us a chance to brief him directly so we can demonstrate that there is a path to victory," he said. "And let's face it, it's the only viable option out there."

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The conventional wisdom that Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to cap Uber's growth as a favor to the taxi industry made no sense to Todd Higgins. The attorney and his clients—four credit unions who financed taxi-medallion purchases—saw the proposal as a diversion from an existential crisis facing yellow cabs. And on that issue, Mr. de Blasio is defending Uber's right to operate in a way that taxi interests say only yellow cabs can.

While Uber has been growing at 3% a month, a slew of taxi-medallion owners have fallen behind on their loan payments to the credit unions. One of the lenders, Queens-based Melrose Credit Union, has seen delinquencies on medallion loans jump by 22%, to more than $200 million, since the end of May. In January, those loans were all current.

"There's no more runway, no more bandwidth to modify loans," Mr. Higgins said. "Our only option left is to start foreclosing on medallions."

But that could lead to a doomsday scenario, once the lenders try to sell those medallions.

"There are no buyers in this market," the attorney said. "It's a completely illiquid market."

It would take a brave investor indeed to purchase medallions now because the revenue they produce is falling, and the bottom is anyone's guess. A medallion was worth about $1 million two years ago, but two recently changed hands for about $700,000 each. In a mass sale of foreclosed medallions, prices could fall much further.

That would compel lenders such as Melrose, which has a security interest in more than 3,000 medallions, to mark down the values of their portfolios. To offset the drastic change in loan-to-equity ratios, lenders would foreclose on more medallions and sell them, driving prices down even more and creating a negative feedback loop—perhaps even a death spiral.

"While the mayor's engaged in a political brawl with Uber, Rome is burning," Mr. Higgins said. "We're talking about an industry that's about to collapse."

The dire warning is intended to persuade a Queens judge to compel the city to stop Uber and other ride-share companies from scooping up customers who hail them with smartphone apps.

The app makers and the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission contend that electronic hails are prearranged travel, and thus fair game for non-taxis.

The Law Department is defending that position in court against Mr. Higgins, who is pressing state Supreme Court Justice Denis Butler to forbid Uber cars from answering e-hails while the case is pending. The lenders consider this crucial because a ruling against taxis would lead to more medallion foreclosures and unrecoverable losses while the case drags on.

Another development last week bolstered the claim that taxis are in trouble. Evgeny "Gene" Freidman, one of the largest owners of medallions, filed for bankruptcy protection for 22 of his companies. Collectively, they own 46 medallions that Citibank is trying to seize for nonpayment of loans.

"This is a power move," Mr. Freidman insisted in a brief phone interview. "This is a not a move from weakness."

His spokesman said the filing was necessary because of "inflexible, predatory banks ignoring the unparalleled crisis facing the medallion industry."

Mr. Freidman is said to own more than 200 taxi medallions but controls hundreds more through his company Taxi Club Management. His financial troubles became public earlier this year when Citibank sought to seize nearly 90 of his medallions. A judge froze the medallions but denied the bank's request to capture them after Mr. Freidman's lawyer argued it would pressure the entire yellow-cab industry.

The taxi mogul is a major donor to Mr. de Blasio, having bundled more than $50,000 in contributions for the mayor's 2013 campaign.

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Two of the state's top business groups and leading opponents of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's wage increase for fast-food workers will not sue to stop it. But they see opportunity for others to win such a case.

"I don't think the Business Council has sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit if it wanted to," said Ken Pokalsky, vice president of the group. "We have relatively small representation in this sector that's affected. But some group is likely to litigate."

Mr. Pokalsky said he believes there is a case to be made. He noted that the legislation authorizing the governor to convene a wage board stipulates that the board's business representative should come from the affected industry "so far as reasonable." Mr. Cuomo appointed Kevin Ryan, founder of Gilt and vice chairman of the Partnership for New York City, who has no direct ties to the fast-food industry.

Jay Holland, governmental coordinator for the Restaurant Association, said the state could have chosen someone from his group to sit on the board, but the administration did not reach out. He said Mr. Cuomo's moves reinforce the perception among business insiders that the wage hike was preordained.

"We believe this process was unfair and discriminatory," he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo's office said the law authorizing a wage board does not require the business representative to come from the industry in question. He also pointed out that Heather Briccetti, president of the Business Council, sat on the governor's previous wage board for tipped workers. (She was outvoted 2 to 1 by the governor's other appointees, resulting in a wage hike for tipped workers. Thursday's vote recommending fast-food wages rise to $15 an hour in December 2018 was 3 to 0.)

At a celebratory rally Wednesday, labor advocates said they hoped the wage board's decision would spur an increase in the minimum wage for all workers statewide, which is scheduled to rise to $9 by the end of the year. Business groups, meanwhile, said they were confused about which operations would be subject to the fast-food hike. McDonald's employees would surely be covered, but it is unclear how a supermarket with fast-casual eatery would be affected.

"That's a fast-food activity," Mr. Pokalsky said. "Is that a fast-food establishment by this language here?"

In his statement on the wage hike, Mr. Mastro seized on the notion that fast-food businesses were being discriminated against.

"Singling out fast-food restaurants while ignoring other similar restaurants within the same industry or other industries will put these small businesses at a competitive disadvantage," he said, "and this is particularly so because there are two million other New Yorkers making the minimum wage, including thousands of them in the very state government that is imposing these discriminatory wage increases."

Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a radio interview that he plans to meet with executives from the Silicon Valley-based firm to discuss the possibility of statewide regulation.

At a press conference in Queens to announce $101 million in improvements for Queens Boulevard, Mr. de Blasio continued to paint Uber as a regulation-averse, profit-driven corporation that disingenuously proclaims itself to be the champion of minorities and the outer boroughs. Despite the deal reached with the company allowing it to maintain its current rate of growth but not to flood the streets with new vehicles, Mr. de Blasio seemed eager to reactivate his plan to curb Uber's growth.

"There will be rules," he said. "I don't care how much money they have—there will be rules."

If Uber falls short on its pledge in Wednesday's agreement to contribute more money to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and to share data for a four-month traffic study, Mr. de Blasio said he would be "100% willing" to resurrect the cap.

"Cap is on the table as an option, and will continue to be," he said.

Uber notes that the agreement stipulates that it only participate in conversations about contributing to the MTA.

The company also made vague promises to add protections for drivers and riders, according to the city. It has been criticized for increasing its prices during periods of peak demand, and for classifying its drivers as independent contractors, rendering them ineligible for benefits associated with full-time employee status.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cuomo took another opportunity to weigh in, as he did Wednesday when questioned Mr. de Blasio's proposed cap and praised Uber. On Thursday, he said he would meet with the company to discuss its plans to expand operations in upstate cities such as Albany, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. Uber also wants access to passengers at the airports, which are controlled by the state through the Port Authority, Mr. Cuomo said.

"If they are going to be operating statewide, I want to make sure we have a regulatory structure," he said. "Insurance, taxes, vehicles ... This would make them a statewide transportation network. And the consumer now needs representation."

Later on Thursday, the City Council's Transportation Committee moved a bill authorizing the traffic study. But the panel's chairman, Ydanis Rodriguez, couldn't resist taking parting shots at Uber. He said the company made the deal only for the sake of public relations.

He also had some "free advice" for the company: "The next time you send out negative mailers in my district attacking me ... write them in Spanish."

Shortly after, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito blasted Mr. de Blasio for failing to give her proper credit for the deal with Uber.

"The facts can’t be distorted, and the fact is that this was a process that belonged solely to the City Council," she said during a City Hall press conference. "Unfortunately, the mayor seems to have a different opinion. And so I don’t agree with the way he has presented it."

A visibly angry speaker said the discussions surrounding the Uber negotiations struck her as sexist.

"I find it offensive as a woman, and as a Latina who is leading this legislative body that somehow the impression is that I was forced to my position, that I couldn't possibly have arrived at this position on my own, that it was others — predominantly men in this case — that got me to this point," she said. "That's completely erroneous."

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Shortly before Gov. Andrew Cuomo's voiced concern about Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to cap the rapid growth in the for-hire vehicle industry, a memo from taxi medallion interests was sent to the governor's office asserting that the City Council's bill violated state law.

The memo was produced by Melrose Credit Union, a Queens-based institution that along with three other taxi medallion lenders sued the de Blasio administration to curtail Uber's operation in the city. In it, the credit union argues that the city legislation would conflict with state law by legitimizing Uber's "acceptance of on-demand electronic hails by passengers currently ready to travel." The state's HAIL Act limits such for-hire vehicles to pre-arranged travel and codifies taxis' exclusive right to answer hails.

Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare companies consider e-hails to be pre-arranged travel, and so far the de Blasio administration has agreed. The matter is the central issue in the medallion lenders' lawsuit.

In a mid-day radio interview Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo did not explicity address that question, but said he was concerned the council bill could have statewide ramifications because Uber drivers might move their bases to neighboring counties in order to sidestep the measure. A spokesman for the mayor called Mr. Cuomo's concerns "mistaken" because only vehicles licensed by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission can pick up passengers in the five boroughs. But Mr. Cuomo said he planned to reach out to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to ask her to delay the vote, which had been slated for Thursday.

Hours later, the mayor's office announced it had reached an agreement with Uber to postone a vote on the bill in exchange for the Silicon Valley company's participation in a four-month study of the for-hire vehicle industry's impact on traffic congestion. (In a scenario reminiscent of "Wag the Dog," the Uber deal, perceived as a defeat for the de Blasio administration, was announced two hours after a state wage board recommended a de Blasio-supported $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers.)

A spokeswoman for the governor declined to address whether the medallion lenders' point about state law influenced Mr. Cuomo's position.

The city does need permission from the state to carry out many of its taxi policies. In 2010, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg steered the HAIL Act through the state legislature, creating a new class of outerborough cabs despite the yellow-cab industry's fear that it would dilute their business. It is ironic that some of those same interests are now citing Mr. Bloomberg's legislation and the court cases that upheld it in their bid to curb Uber.

A source trying to defeat the measure said the jurisdictional issues raised by the medallion lenders helped persuade six or seven council members to back off the bill just before the de Blasio-Uber deal made it moot. Meanwhile, Uber spent millions of dollars on television ads, robo calls and negative mailers attacking Mr. de Blasio and his council allies for pushing the measure.

Queens Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, the majority leader, said the bill would have passed had it come up for a vote. Still, he praised the decision to delay it and said he hopes the latest dust-up between the city and the darling of Silicon Valley raised serious questions about technology and government regulation.

"We do need to wrap ourselves around this phenomenon that is Uber," Mr. Van Bramer said. "It's so big and came in so fast that it makes sense to take a look at this and study the impacts that are felt."